BY GRACE CHIRUMANZU
47-YEAR-OLD Getrude Hambira who was elected the first woman Secretary General for the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers’ Union at the height of the land reform in 2000, says she will continue fighting for human rights despite the political challenges.
Hambira tells Women Can that her road to this day has not been easy with the brutality the government unleashed, in recent years and she regrets to remember how women and children were badly affected.
“The past ten years have been so difficult for the farm workers, especially women and children. My rise to this post coincided with the infamous, chaotic state endorsed land reform in which there were a lot of human rights abuses. The workers lost their healthy livelihood and accommodation,” she said.
“It was a difficult time for me as a new leader, faced with thousands of workers to represent, at the same time evading the state agents who saw our quest to represent the farm workers as opposition to the land reform.”
Reminiscing of the 2002 parliamentary elections when then the ruling party, ZANU Pf lost 57seats to the newly formed Movement for Democratic Change, Hambira says her Union, GAPWUZ became known for the wrong reasons because of its affiliation to Zimbabwe Congress Of Trade Union, where the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai emerged.
“With such a background, heading GAPWUZ and standing for the rights of the farm workers was no easy task. I had to summon all the courage, determination and commitment to represent the people who had chosen me to stand up for them,” explained Hambira.
She has not been let down by being a woman leader in a male dominated and hostile political environment and tells of her ambitions to see farm workers, especially women and children “standing up for their rights and taking up decision making positions in the community and in the country as a whole.”
“The relationship that we have with workers is driven by our ambitions to bring up change in their lives. It is my dream to see women in the farms taking up leading position because their participation is very vital,” said GAPWUZ secretary general.
“My word to women is that we should not tire and look backwards, we should not lose focus but continue to fight for our rights with determination and courage; that is the only way we can be recognized.”
Hambira, who started her working career as a factory machinist in rural Zimbabwe at the age of 19, a year after Independence, joined the trade union movement in 1987 as an educator with the country’s main labor body, ZCTU, to later join its affiliate, GAPWUZ.
She is also involved in the Coalition Against Child Labor in Zimbabwe, which was formed after GAPWUZ, the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe and African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Labor and Neglect realized that the new farmers recruited children to work in the farms following the creation of many child headed families due to the subsequent decline in the economy and the effects of the HIV-AIDS pandemic.
“We are strongly against child labor and we are encouraging that school is the best practice,” she said.
Hambira tells Women Can that her road to this day has not been easy with the brutality the government unleashed, in recent years and she regrets to remember how women and children were badly affected.
“The past ten years have been so difficult for the farm workers, especially women and children. My rise to this post coincided with the infamous, chaotic state endorsed land reform in which there were a lot of human rights abuses. The workers lost their healthy livelihood and accommodation,” she said.
“It was a difficult time for me as a new leader, faced with thousands of workers to represent, at the same time evading the state agents who saw our quest to represent the farm workers as opposition to the land reform.”
Reminiscing of the 2002 parliamentary elections when then the ruling party, ZANU Pf lost 57seats to the newly formed Movement for Democratic Change, Hambira says her Union, GAPWUZ became known for the wrong reasons because of its affiliation to Zimbabwe Congress Of Trade Union, where the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai emerged.
“With such a background, heading GAPWUZ and standing for the rights of the farm workers was no easy task. I had to summon all the courage, determination and commitment to represent the people who had chosen me to stand up for them,” explained Hambira.
She has not been let down by being a woman leader in a male dominated and hostile political environment and tells of her ambitions to see farm workers, especially women and children “standing up for their rights and taking up decision making positions in the community and in the country as a whole.”
“The relationship that we have with workers is driven by our ambitions to bring up change in their lives. It is my dream to see women in the farms taking up leading position because their participation is very vital,” said GAPWUZ secretary general.
“My word to women is that we should not tire and look backwards, we should not lose focus but continue to fight for our rights with determination and courage; that is the only way we can be recognized.”
Hambira, who started her working career as a factory machinist in rural Zimbabwe at the age of 19, a year after Independence, joined the trade union movement in 1987 as an educator with the country’s main labor body, ZCTU, to later join its affiliate, GAPWUZ.
She is also involved in the Coalition Against Child Labor in Zimbabwe, which was formed after GAPWUZ, the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe and African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Labor and Neglect realized that the new farmers recruited children to work in the farms following the creation of many child headed families due to the subsequent decline in the economy and the effects of the HIV-AIDS pandemic.
“We are strongly against child labor and we are encouraging that school is the best practice,” she said.
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